


one day they'll drink from our bones

by the chivalrous dead (S_Hylor)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 20:52:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Hylor/pseuds/the%20chivalrous%20dead
Summary: The Avengers are meant to protect the world. But the world isn't the same anymore. The world is dying. But the dead aren't staying dead.Now the Avengers a holed up in an abandoned prison, doing what they can, with what little they have left, their numbers ever dwindling.Tony's not sure how much longer they can keep going.





	one day they'll drink from our bones

**Author's Note:**

> Of everything supernatural, zombies are my favourite. So, naturally, I love throwing zombies into everything possible. 
> 
> You'll notice I've chosen not to use archive warnings. See end notes for warnings if you'd rather know before reading.
> 
> Title taken from the song Milk Teeth by Keaton Henson.

Tony hears the clamour of them returning, the banging of the door and hasty footsteps pounding against the cement floor. He can hear Sam’s voice cutting above the rest, calling for first aid and calling for him. It has been an effort to drag himself out of bed since the gunshot wound that had opened up his shoulder, catching bone and muscle and even more damage done when Natasha had had to remove the bullet for him. For all the flesh eating corpses that are roaming around, Tony still thought that other humans were the biggest threat out there. 

It isn’t an effort to drag himself out of bed when he hears Sam shouting his name, traces of fever still lingering but almost gone. Tony stumbles to his feet and lets the momentum carry him out of the cell he’s in and down the metal walkway to the stairs leading down to the ground floor. 

The prison is a good place, it’s safe, it’s defensible, which is good because it’s also highly sought after. Everyone wants somewhere secure and safe these days. It’s a near miracle they’ve held onto it for this long. 

“Sam?” Tony calls, making his way down the stairs, footsteps too loud in the quiet that follows his voice. “Wilson, what’s going on?” 

Sam appears from inside one of the cells further down the tier. It’s the first aid cell, Tony knows that. Where they keep their supplies for the block, the first stop before transfer back into the medical wing. 

“Tony,” Sam starts, glancing between Tony and back into the cell. His face looks wretched, tired and worn, but wrecked in a way that can only mean one thing. Either someone has died, or they’re about to. “Tony, I’m sorry.” 

“Shut up, Wilson. Not your fault.” 

The voice comes from inside the cell, raspy with pain, but so recognisable that Tony feels his knees buckle at the sound of it. He’s not sure what to do, he hangs there for a moment, gripping the bars for support because he’s so relieved that Steve’s alive, but at the same time he dreads what he’s going to see when he gets to the cell. 

Tony’s shaking his head even as Sam comes to help him, clutching his elbow and guiding him towards the door. He doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to see the reason why Steve’s in the first aid cell, and he doesn’t want to see the reason why Sam’s apologising. 

In that moment he hates Sam. Hates him for moving him towards the door. Hates him for apologising. He hates Steve too. Because something has happened to Steve and he hates him for making him scared. He hates himself for not being there to protect Steve. If he hadn’t been lying around with an injured shoulder, maybe Steve wouldn’t be in the first aid cell, and maybe Sam wouldn’t be apologising. 

A sound wrenches its way out of his throat when he finally gets level with the door, something harsh and angry and so much like a sob that he doesn’t want to recognise it. He curls his hand around the bars at the edge of the door and doesn’t want to move any further. 

Steve’s lying on the bed, stripped to the waist and field bandages crisscrossing his torso and shoulders. They’re all dark with blood, red blooming against the white cotton, stretching and creeping further as Tony stares. Steve’s pale and clammy looking, hair dark with sweat and blood and sticking up all over the place. He’s trying to smile though, even if it looks more like a grimace. 

“Hey, Shellhead.” Steve’s voice rasps out, his smile faltering a bit when Tony lets out another gasping sob. “Hey, hey, don’t cry for me.” 

“I’m not.” Tony defends on habit, letting go of the bars to rub at his face even as he wobbles in place. His cheeks are damp, but he thinks maybe this time he’s allowed to cry. “I’m crying over the fact that you’ve obviously ruined the armour I made you.” 

It had been a bad job, cobbled together from bits of Steve’s old suit, nothing high tech about it, mostly badly stitched and with more duct tape than Tony would ever like to admit to. But it was meant to keep Steve safe. It was meant to stop him from getting bitten. 

Tony had failed yet again to protect those he cared about. 

Steve’s smile turns a little sheepish, but then he grimaces with pain again, sucking in a breath that sounds like too much hard work. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll mend it later.” 

Tony feels Sam encourage him into the cell, guiding him over to the seat beside the bed, and manoeuvring him into it. He doesn’t miss the way that Sam slips his gun from its holster and places it in Tony’s hands. He wants to throw it away, but he knows better than to mistreat firearms. He can’t bring himself to close his fingers around it though. Can’t bring himself to look at it either. 

But looking at Steve isn’t much better. 

He doesn’t know what to say, can’t think of anything to say that will make things better. There is no way to make it better. 

“Sorry, Shellhead.” 

Steve’s looking at him, smile gone, eyes staring, boring holes into him, making everything ache with an intensity that only Steve could ever manage. 

“Don’t say that.” Tony’s throat feels tight, trying to close around the words and he wipes at his face again. “You don’t get to say that.” 

Steve gives him a painfully sad smile, reaching out one hand towards Tony but making no move to touch him. “I’m sorry, Tony.” 

Tony pushes the gun to rest on his thigh, holds it there with one hand curled loosely over the top of it. He closes his other hand around Steve’s, tries not to cling to it like a lifeline. Tries not to notice the blood that stains his skin. Like the blood that stains the bandages. “It’s okay, Steve, it’s okay. Everything will be alright. The serum, it’ll take care of this. You’ll be better in no time.” 

He doesn’t believe it. He wishes he did, wishes he had faith in the serum, but he knows it doesn’t make Steve immortal. He knows that there is very little chance that Steve will recover. 

“I wasn’t quick enough.” Steve slurs the words a little bit, gritting his teeth and flicking his eyes away. Sure signs that he’s mad at himself. “Got sloppy. Got careless. They got the better of me.” 

Tony doesn’t ask how many, he doesn’t ask how many times Steve got bitten. He doesn’t even ask if that’s the only damage. He doesn’t want to think about how torn up Steve is beneath the bandages, but he thinks, can’t know for sure, but he thinks, at least they didn’t get as far as gutting him. He shuts his eyes and swallows down the bile brought up by that thought. The memory of seeing it happen to other people. People he didn’t know. People he knew. He’s glad he didn’t see it happen to Steve. Hates himself for not being there to stop it. 

“But you’re still alive.” Tony whispers the words out, dragging in a shuddery breath and opening his eyes to look at Steve. To see the pale skin, sweat and blood mingling together. “They didn’t kill you.” 

Steve squeezes his hand, it might be a reflex because of the pain, or it might have been an attempt at comfort. “Sam got me out. Told him he should have left me there.” 

Left him there to die. To turn. Or put a bullet or a blade through his brain to end it quickly. Tony knows that is what Steve means. What Steve would have wanted, but Sam didn’t listen. 

Some part of him is grateful that Sam didn’t listen. 

“Don’t know that you’re gonna die yet.” Sam’s voice drifts in from the door, he’s back, holding a basin of water. “We don’t know what the serum will do. But if anyone has a chance to survive this, Cap, it’s you.” 

Steve squeezes Tony’s hand again, stares at Sam across the cell. “And if I don’t, we don’t know how much of a risk I’m going to be. I turn and you’ve got a super soldier zombie on your hands, then what?” 

Sam shrugs, rolls his eyes like they’ve had this argument before. “Then we deal with it. But I wasn’t just going to put a bullet through your skull without even giving you a chance.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything in response, his hand goes limp in Tony’s and he sort of deflates into the bed, eyes drooping. It takes Tony a horrifying minute to realise that Steve has just lapsed into unconsciousness, and isn’t in fact dead. He grips Steve’s hand all the tighter, terrified that if it just slips away the rest of Steve will go with it. 

“And,” Sam pauses, pinches his lips together before letting out a harsh sigh. “And I thought it’d be better if he got a chance to say goodbye to people this time. If you got a chance to say goodbye.” 

Tony nods mutely, throat clicking as he swallows. He wants to say something in response, knows he should, but he can’t think of anything. 

Jane arrives then, looking frazzled and half asleep, Thor almost immediately behind her. They stop in the doorway behind Sam, Jane gasps and covers her mouth with both hands, trying to suffocate whatever other sounds she wants to make. Thor clenches his jaw and doesn’t say anything, but his eye show defeat. Tony wants to lash out at him for a moment, because he obviously has given up on Steve before he’s even had a chance, but Tony knows the truth of the situation as well. The odds aren’t in Steve’s favour. No betting man would back him to live. 

Jane recovers, bustling into the cell, navigating past Sam to approach the bed. She’s gentle as she grips Tony’s shoulders and eases him out of the seat. He feels like he’s on autopilot, no control, as he finds himself at the door, Sam, Thor and Jane all between him and Steve. The gun drags heavy on his injured arm, but he can’t bring himself to care about the ache. All he can think about is how empty his other hand feels now that it has let go of Steve’s. 

He doesn’t want to watch as Jane starts cutting away the bandages, but can’t turn his head. Thor helps Jane manoeuvre Steve as she needs, while Sam fetches anything that she asks for in a hushed voice. Tony can’t look away from the torn skin on Steve’s shoulder, a bloody mess of skin and muscle. He wonders if it was the first bite, knows that it must have been. The one that caught Steve by surprise. The one that brought him down so that other sets of teeth could try going for more tender places. 

Steve whimpers but doesn’t wake and Tony nearly bites his tongue in half. He starts chewing on the skin near his thumbnail instead, knowing that he’s gnawing it raw, but he can’t take the little noises of pain that Steve makes as Jane tries to wash each of the wounds. Bites. Each of the bites. Tony can’t escape the knowledge. This isn’t another mission related injury. There isn’t a hospital nearby to help patch Steve up. They can’t just slap a bandage on it and pump him full of fluids and let the serum do the rest. 

He wishes Bruce was still here. Bruce knew more about the serum than the rest of them. But Bruce is gone. They lost him, when New York fell, when they had to evacuate the tower, they lost Hulk to an explosion and a falling building and wave after wave of rabid zombies. Tony doesn’t think he’s dead. Or at least, he doesn’t think that the Hulk would have succumb to a zombie bite. But he doesn’t know about the rest. Even if Bruce is still alive, there is little chance they’d find him again. Or that he’d find them. 

Tony isn’t sure that Bruce would have the answers for Steve either. 

But he still misses him. 

They’ve lost too many. Bruce, Pietro, Hank, Bucky. They haven’t heard from Carol or Jen or either of the Jessica’s since everything happened. Nor Luke or Danny. Tony just hopes the baby is okay, but he really doesn’t like the chances. 

Clint went to find his family and they haven’t heard from him since the phones went down. Pepper was on the west coast and Rhodey was overseas. He’d managed to keep in contact with them through FRIDAY, but once they abandoned the tower, he had no way of communicating with them. 

They’ve lost too many. Tony doesn’t want to lose Steve too. Steve is their binding agent, the glue that holds them together. He holds Tony together, even when everything else felt like it is falling apart. Steve held them all together without even trying. Even when he was near catatonic with grief after Bucky died, everyone still rallied around him. 

They can’t lose Steve. 

Tony can’t lose Steve. 

His world starts and ends with Steve. 

He doesn’t want it to end. 

There are clean bandages in place, but Tony can already see the blood starting to seep through, the first tinge of pink as it works its way through white cotton. He’s back in the chair and there’s a sling securing his injured arm to his chest. He doesn’t remember that happening, but he supposes it must be Jane’s handy work. 

He settles the gun on his thigh and takes Steve’s hand in his again. Steve has one hand free, the other handcuffed to the bed frame. It’s precaution. Standard practice these days for anyone bitten, injured or sick. Precaution in case of turning. Tony doesn’t think that the handcuffs or the bed frame will hold Steve for too long, but it might just be long enough. 

Steve’s still breathing though, shallow and spaced too far apart to be normal. But he’s still breathing. His hand feels clammy in Tony’s, limp and lifeless except for the occasional twitch. It doesn’t stop him from squeezing Steve’s hand as tight as he can and hoping for a response. 

Jane and Thor come back, and Steve’s still breathing. He hasn’t woken up, Tony knows he’d remember that, even if he can’t remember anything else that happened between Jane’s trips to tend to Steve. He lost time, but knows that it must have been a while because the bandages are nearly stained through again. 

He doesn’t move this time, even when Thor tries to make him. He plants his feet and grips Steve’s hand and refuses to move. Tony knows that if Thor really put any effort into it, he’d have no hope outside of the suit, but he doesn’t think Thor’s heart is in it. 

They let him sit at the head of the bed with Steve’s head cradled in his lap. The gun rests on the pillow and Tony strokes his fingers through Steve’s hair and wills him to keep breathing. Wanda sits at the table just outside of the cell, and Tony knows she’s on watch. They think he’s too emotionally compromised to be able to deal with Steve if he dies. She sits and watches and doesn’t grudge him his grief. 

Steve doesn’t wake, but a fever rolls through him, until he’s burning to the touch and sweat beads on his skin. Tony wipes his face with the cloth and basin of water Sam keeps refreshing. He whispers promises and reassurances and equations to Steve, anything he can think to say, until his throat cracks and he can’t form words any more. 

Natasha replaces Wanda, but she sits inside the cell, on the chair that Tony left vacant. She doesn’t say anything, but Tony thinks it’s because she’s just as caught up in her own head as he is. 

Steve wakes before the fever breaks, tries to sit up and groans from the pain. He flails and tries to move but Tony holds onto him as well as he can with one arm. His heart feels like it’s breaking when Steve calls out for Bucky  and let’s out half broken sobs when Bucky doesn’t come. 

Jane changes the bandages again when Steve drops back into unconsciousness. He put too much strain on his injuries by moving around, Tony is pretty sure that the bandages needed changing a lot earlier than previously. He tries not to look at the wounds as Jane cleans them, tries not to imagine blunt teeth ripping into Steve’s stomach and sides. The screams echo in his mind even though he wasn’t there to hear them. 

He wasn’t there. 

But he is now, when there are no longer any teeth, but the wounds left behind are starting to fester and inflame. They don’t have any antibiotics, and even if they did, Tony isn’t sure there would be enough to get past the serum to do any good. 

Sam brings him food, insists Tony eats while he tries to get Steve to drink a little water. He coughs and chokes on it until they have to turn him in his side long enough for the water to run back out of his mouth. They don’t try again, not while Steve is still unconscious. 

Thor takes Natasha’s place. He grips Mjolnir too tightly and is too silent for Tony to be comfortable with. He wishes Thor would leave. He wishes Thor would talk and tell tales, anything to fill the silence of the cell that is only interrupted by Steve’s shallow breathing. 

Tony thinks he might have been dozing, head lolling to one side, and awful pain in his neck, when he feels Steve stir against him. He reaches for the gun, waiting for the moment of gnashing teeth biting into him, but it never comes. When he looks down, Steve’s blue eyes are staring back up at him. He doesn’t look as clammy as he did before, though he looks paler and more gaunt than Tony has ever seen him. 

“Hey, Shellhead.” The words rasp out, lips and tongue too dry to do any better. Steve licks his lips anyway, coughs a bit even as Tony is reaching for the water. He manages to tip a little between Steve’s lips, not sure how he manages with his hand shaking so badly. 

“Steve.” He whispers the name out, voice cracking and breaking apart around the sound. His heart feels like it’s in his throat, but he’s so relieved that Steve is awake again that he can’t care if he has a heart attack and dies himself. 

Steve swallows the water, licks his lips again and fumbles his unchained hand up until Tony closes his own around it. His eyes close again and Steve turns his head a little, straining his neck so that he can nuzzle against Tony the best that he can. “Love you, Tony. Know that.” 

“Love you too, Winghead, now sleep, get better.” He tries not to think about how scratchy his voice sounds, how wrecked with emotion he feels. He tries not to think about the spark of hope since the fever broke, that maybe it means the serum is fighting against the infection. That Steve will get better now. 

He moves to lie beside Steve, presses into the small space left on the bed and watches his chest rise and fall with each breath. Watches as red blood creeps through the bandages. 

When he wakes he knows something is wrong. Everything is too still. There’s no rise and fall of Steve’s chest any more, no shallow breathing. 

Sam is there suddenly, in the door and beside the bed, hauling Tony off of it, and it isn’t until Sam has him away from the bed, arms clamped around him that Tony realises that the soft keening sound filling the room is coming from him. He tries to breathe and nearly chokes on a sob. 

Steve’s gone. 

Steve’s dead. 

His world starts and ends with Steve and it has come to an abrupt end. 

“He was getting better!” He hears himself protesting as Sam murmurs calming things in his ear, but he knows that this isn’t his grief alone. Sam loved Steve too. Maybe differently, but they all did. Steve was their binding agent. The glue that held them together. 

“I’m sorry Tony, I’m sorry.” Sam keeps repeating it over and over again, and Tony wants him to shut up, because it isn’t his fault. Sam saved Steve and brought him home to give him a chance. Sam did what he was meant to. 

It was Tony who failed. Tony who let Steve down. He wasn’t there to save him, wasn’t there to watch his back. 

He thought that everything was going to get better, because the fever broke. Because Steve looked at him and knew who he was. But it had just been the calm before the storm. 

Steve is so still. He isn’t moving, he isn’t breathing. He isn’t turning, not yet. 

It’s only a matter of time. 

Tony knows it, and he knows that Sam knows it too. They’ve got to do something, just like they always do. It’s not the first time they’ve lost someone. It won’t be the last either. 

“He’s gone.” Tony hears himself say, like it needs to be said. Even if it’s only him and Sam to hear it. 

“I know, Tony, I’m sorry.” Sam replies, because they need to fill the silence. “We need to take care of him.” 

Tony nods, feels his throat constrict at the same time he feels bile rising. The thought of putting a bullet or a blade through Steve’s brain is more than he can handle. He thinks, maybe, they could just put Steve outside, let him turn and wander off. Let him roam. He thinks, maybe, he could let Steve turn and let him bite him. He thinks that maybe then they’d wander together. 

He knows that if he let any of that happen, Steve would never forgive him. 

“I’ll do it.” It takes a moment to realise that it’s his own voice. Tony feels his hand close around the sheathed blade on his hip, small and sharp and ideal. “I owe him that. He asked me to. Once before.”  

Sam lets go of him, steps back nodding. “I’m sorry I couldn’t.” 

“No, I get it.” Tony replies, but he can’t look at Sam. His own grief is all consuming, he doesn’t want to have to deal with Sam’s too. “I just need a minute.” 

Sam gets what he isn’t saying and leaves without a fuss. They’ll have time to say goodbye later, to bury Steve. To mourn. But this, right now, this is Tony’s burden to bear. His grief to carry. 

He finds himself kneeling beside the bed. He pulls his arm free of the sling so that he has two hands; one to cup the side of Steve’s face, the other to hold the knife at the base of his skull. There’s no response. No life. 

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t there. I’m sorry this happened to you.” 

He waits, leaning his forehead against Steve’s because it doesn’t matter the danger, he needs to be close. Tony waits, even though he doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He could just push the blade in, up under the skull and into the brain, ending it before it even starts. 

But he knows he won’t. 

Because he has to know for sure that when Steve turns he’ll be just the same as all the rest. 

Because there’s a chance that he might be different. 

Tony isn’t sure how long he waits, he doesn’t look at the watch that hasn’t kept time in over a month. The watch he still wears because Steve gave it to him. He feels Steve’s skin cooling against his, all he can smell is blood and fresh death. 

When it comes it isn’t a surprise and it isn’t fast. He can feel the minute muscle spasms where he touches Steve, can hear the raspy not breathing start in its throat. It. Because it isn’t Steve any more. 

Tony leans back, regretting that he waited this long, that he let Steve turn, because the blue eyes staring up at him are clouded and dead, just like all the rest. It works its jaw, mouth starting to search. 

“I’m sorry.” He isn’t sure what he’s apologising for any more. He jams the blade up into its brain, watching as it goes limp, never quite getting to the point of being fully functioning. “I’m so sorry.” 

He can’t bring himself to retract the knife, dropping back to sit on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest and leaning his head against Steve’s hip. Tony can feel the tears tracking down his cheeks. They might have been there all along, but he only notices them now that it’s all over. He makes no move to wipe them away. “I love you, Steve.” 

He isn’t sure who moves him, probably Thor, maybe Sam, but he finds himself on a bed. It isn’t his bed. It isn’t his cell that he shares with Steve. 

Shared. 

He’s grateful that it isn’t his room. He doesn’t think he could handle the emptiness. 

It might be hours, it might be days, but when Natasha comes to get him, Tony doesn’t think he’s moved once. 

“We’re going to bury him.” Natasha states, matter of fact, but Tony can hear the waver in her voice beneath the words. “You should be there. You won’t forgive yourself if you aren’t.”

She’s right. That’s how he finds himself standing in their cemetery, watching as Thor and Sam shovel dirt back over the form wrapped in a blanket. He knows it’s Steve inside the blanket, but part of him still searches the small congregation for the soldier. 

It doesn’t feel right that he can’t find him. 

He stays there, long after the grave is covered over and Steve’s dog tags are hung on the wooden cross someone placed at the head of the grave. 

He stays there because he doesn’t know what else to do. He feels directionless. He doesn’t want to go back to the cell that Steve is no longer there to share. He doesn’t want to go back inside where it still smells like Steve’s blood. 

He doesn’t want to do anything. 

But Steve would never forgive him if he gave up. And he won’t, because there are still people to try and protect. There is still the rest of the team, and he isn’t the only one to have lost someone. 

But for a moment, he wants to savour his grief. Wants to hold onto the pain of loss and forget that he has to move on. 

Tony knows it won’t be long though, before he joins Steve. Not in this world. 

He unfastens the watch from around his wrist, presses the face of it to his lips as he shudders a breath in and out. It hurts, to leave the watch behind. But he wants Steve to be remembered by more than just his dog tags. They can’t leave the shield, not when Sam can use it just as well. If there is ever anyone else in the prison, one day after they’re all dead and gone, Tony wants Steve to be remembered as more than just a solider. He wants the world to know that Steve was the kind of person who gave a watch to the person he loved and wasn’t afraid to engrave that sentiment into the back of it. 

He leaves the watch hanging by the dog tags. Runs his fingers over the metal disks one last time before he stands up.  

“See you again, someday soon.” Tony turns his back on the grave and starts to walk back to the prison compound. He can see Sam and Natasha lingering up the path, waiting for him, he knows it’s just in case he does anything stupid. 

He won’t. 

After all, the world hasn’t finished ending yet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Steve gets bitten (quite a few times - all off screen before the fic begins). The serum doesn't heal him, the bites are fatal. 
> 
> I'm sorry.


End file.
